The history of occupational therapy is intertwined with the emergence and development of institutional psychotherapy, as part of a process that, between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, reshaped the relationship between mental health care, work, and the environment. An early landmark was the treatise on medical gymnastics published in 1780 by the royal physician Joseph Clément Tissot. A few years later, in 1786, Philippe Pinel, drawing inspiration from the asylum for the insane in Zaragoza, introduced the so-called “moral treatment.” Within this approach, work was understood not merely as a productive activity but as a practice endowed with moral and therapeutic value, while the family was identified as the primary structure of individual existence and social integration, including for psychiatric patients. From its earliest applications, however, patient labour served different and at times conflicting purposes: generating income for asylum institutions, helping to preserve public order, and promoting personal well-being. Following his experiment at Bicêtre, Pinel actively supported the development of occupational therapy, which attracted increasing attention throughout nineteenth-century Europe. Its expansion culminated between the final decade of the century and the aftermath of the First World War, when psychiatric hospitals made growing use of agricultural colonies occupying extensive areas of land. These settlements gave spatial and organizational form to the belief that manual activity, outdoor life, and contact with nature could contribute simultaneously to treatment, everyday discipline, and the institution’s economic management. In Italy, with the exception of the early complex at Lucca-Fregionaia, established through the initiatives of 1819 and 1829, agricultural colonies began to appear and spread primarily between 1860 and the end of the First World War. They assumed different configurations: farms of varying size adjoining the main psychiatric hospital, or detached branches that extended the care system across a wider territory. The contribution examines three case studies dating from the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a decisive period in which European approaches to planning agricultural colonies in support of asylums converged around a small number of fundamental principles. A broadly universal model consequently emerged for organizing, managing, and supervising the work of the mentally ill, based on the integration of architectural layout, the ordering of activities, surveillance, and the productive or therapeutic use of land. The cases reveal that the colony was not simply a rural appendage to the asylum, but a complex apparatus in which medical, moral, economic, and social concerns overlapped. The transition from the asylum as an exclusively carceral space to the psychiatric hospital equipped with an agricultural colony and conceived as a relatively open institution also altered the meaning assigned to natural settings. Fields, gardens, and landscapes no longer served only as scenery or resources to be exploited; they became active components of treatment and instruments for regulating the time, movement, and relationships of the hospital community. The transition embodies a twofold change: on the one hand, the development of theoretical and scientific inquiry into the connections among environment, work, and health; on the other, the gradual establishment of the idea of the therapeutic landscape. Although marked by tensions between emancipation and discipline, and between well-being and profit, the agricultural-colony model helped redefine both the psychiatric institution and the patient’s position within it. The historical reconstruction proposed here demonstrates how the organization of space and labour practices contributed to the formation of new paradigms of care, anticipating questions that would receive broader development and recognition throughout the twentieth century.
La storia dell’ergoterapia si intreccia con la nascita e l’evoluzione della psicoterapia istituzionale, in un processo che, fra tardo Settecento e primo Novecento, ridefinisce il rapporto fra cura della malattia mentale, lavoro e ambiente. Un primo riferimento è il trattato sulla ginnastica medicinale pubblicato nel 1780 dal medico reale Joseph Clément Tissot; pochi anni dopo, nel 1786, Philippe Pinel, ispirandosi all’esperienza dell’asilo per alienati di Saragozza, introduce il cosiddetto “trattamento morale”. In tale prospettiva il lavoro non è concepito soltanto come attività produttiva, ma come pratica dal valore morale e terapeutico, mentre la famiglia viene riconosciuta quale struttura primaria dell’esistenza individuale e dell’integrazione sociale, anche per il malato psichiatrico. Sin dalle prime applicazioni, l’impiego dei pazienti risponde a finalità differenti e talvolta conflittuali: produrre un utile economico per le istituzioni manicomiali, contribuire al mantenimento dell’ordine pubblico e favorire il benessere della persona. Dopo l’esperimento condotto a Bicêtre, Pinel sostiene attivamente lo sviluppo della terapia occupazionale, che ottiene crescente attenzione nell’Europa ottocentesca. La sua diffusione raggiunge il momento di massima espansione tra l’ultimo decennio del secolo e il primo dopoguerra, quando numerosi ospedali psichiatrici si dotano di colonie agricole di notevole estensione. Gli insediamenti traducono spazialmente l’idea che l’attività manuale, la vita all’aperto e il contatto con la natura possano concorrere alla cura, alla disciplina quotidiana e alla gestione economica dell’istituzione. In Italia, fatta eccezione per il precoce impianto di Lucca-Fregionaia, avviato in due fasi (1819, 1829), la nascita e la progressiva diffusione delle colonie agricole si concentrano fra il 1860 e la fine della Prima guerra mondiale. Esse assumono configurazioni diverse: aziende agrarie, più o meno estese, poste in continuità con il nucleo ospedaliero-psichiatrico principale, oppure succursali distaccate, articolando il sistema assistenziale sul territorio. Il contributo esamina tre casi di studio riconducibili al terzo quarto dell’Ottocento, una fase cruciale nella quale le tendenze europee relative alla pianificazione delle colonie agricole a servizio degli asili per alienati convergono attorno a pochi principi fondamentali. Emerge così un modello tendenzialmente universale di organizzazione, gestione e controllo del lavoro dei folli, fondato sull’integrazione fra assetto architettonico, ordinamento delle attività, sorveglianza e uso produttivo o terapeutico del suolo. I casi permettono di leggere la colonia non come semplice appendice rurale del manicomio, ma come dispositivo complesso nel quale istanze mediche, morali, economiche e sociali si sovrappongono. La trasformazione dal manicomio inteso come spazio esclusivo di confinamento all’ospedale psichiatrico dotato di colonia agricola, pensato come istituzione aperta, modifica anche il significato attribuito agli spazi naturali. Campi, giardini e paesaggi non costituiscono più soltanto una cornice o una risorsa da sfruttare, ma divengono elementi attivi del programma di cura e strumenti per regolare tempi, movimenti e relazioni della comunità ospedaliera. Il passaggio documenta un duplice mutamento: da un lato, lo sviluppo di un’indagine teorica e scientifica sul nesso fra ambiente, lavoro e salute; dall’altro, la progressiva affermazione del concetto di paesaggio terapeutico. Pur attraversato dall’ambivalenza fra emancipazione e disciplina, benessere e profitto, il modello della colonia agricola contribuisce a ripensare l’istituzione psichiatrica e la posizione del paziente al suo interno. La ricostruzione storica proposta mostra come l’organizzazione dello spazio e delle pratiche lavorative abbia partecipato alla definizione di nuovi paradigmi assistenziali, anticipando temi che troveranno più ampia elaborazione e fortuna nel corso del Novecento.
Eterotopie della deviazione: tre casi di colonie agricole di asili per alienati del secondo Ottocento
Gerardo Doti
;Elisa Ciavatta
2026-01-01
Abstract
The history of occupational therapy is intertwined with the emergence and development of institutional psychotherapy, as part of a process that, between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, reshaped the relationship between mental health care, work, and the environment. An early landmark was the treatise on medical gymnastics published in 1780 by the royal physician Joseph Clément Tissot. A few years later, in 1786, Philippe Pinel, drawing inspiration from the asylum for the insane in Zaragoza, introduced the so-called “moral treatment.” Within this approach, work was understood not merely as a productive activity but as a practice endowed with moral and therapeutic value, while the family was identified as the primary structure of individual existence and social integration, including for psychiatric patients. From its earliest applications, however, patient labour served different and at times conflicting purposes: generating income for asylum institutions, helping to preserve public order, and promoting personal well-being. Following his experiment at Bicêtre, Pinel actively supported the development of occupational therapy, which attracted increasing attention throughout nineteenth-century Europe. Its expansion culminated between the final decade of the century and the aftermath of the First World War, when psychiatric hospitals made growing use of agricultural colonies occupying extensive areas of land. These settlements gave spatial and organizational form to the belief that manual activity, outdoor life, and contact with nature could contribute simultaneously to treatment, everyday discipline, and the institution’s economic management. In Italy, with the exception of the early complex at Lucca-Fregionaia, established through the initiatives of 1819 and 1829, agricultural colonies began to appear and spread primarily between 1860 and the end of the First World War. They assumed different configurations: farms of varying size adjoining the main psychiatric hospital, or detached branches that extended the care system across a wider territory. The contribution examines three case studies dating from the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a decisive period in which European approaches to planning agricultural colonies in support of asylums converged around a small number of fundamental principles. A broadly universal model consequently emerged for organizing, managing, and supervising the work of the mentally ill, based on the integration of architectural layout, the ordering of activities, surveillance, and the productive or therapeutic use of land. The cases reveal that the colony was not simply a rural appendage to the asylum, but a complex apparatus in which medical, moral, economic, and social concerns overlapped. The transition from the asylum as an exclusively carceral space to the psychiatric hospital equipped with an agricultural colony and conceived as a relatively open institution also altered the meaning assigned to natural settings. Fields, gardens, and landscapes no longer served only as scenery or resources to be exploited; they became active components of treatment and instruments for regulating the time, movement, and relationships of the hospital community. The transition embodies a twofold change: on the one hand, the development of theoretical and scientific inquiry into the connections among environment, work, and health; on the other, the gradual establishment of the idea of the therapeutic landscape. Although marked by tensions between emancipation and discipline, and between well-being and profit, the agricultural-colony model helped redefine both the psychiatric institution and the patient’s position within it. The historical reconstruction proposed here demonstrates how the organization of space and labour practices contributed to the formation of new paradigms of care, anticipating questions that would receive broader development and recognition throughout the twentieth century.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
